Europe **draft mode**

discuss this draft and get it supported by the founding members - 10 October 2015

formal request to the board of OSGeo to recognise OSGeo.eu as a local chapter 10 October 2015

next board meeting: 15 October 2015 (decision about the acceptance of the proposal)

todolist

We need:

Europe Mailing list (with founding members subscribed as start), open to anyone.

...

Introduction

FOSS4G Europe is rooted in the FOSS4G Central and Eastern Europe conference series, back in 2012. The latter evolved in 2014 as the first edition of FOSS4G Europe in Bremen. The conference is now becoming the main european FOSS4G event, gathering people and OSGeo local chapters from all over Europe and beyond.

Since the conference in Bremen, thoughts and ideas where exchanged to organise OSGeo more on a European basis. The Industry group was started, a platform of people supporting the idea arose, but there was no real initiative for action.

This year we (OSGeoEU) have the ambition to organise a legal entity OSGEO-EU to create a stronger software group in Europe to defend the rights of open source from the perspective of the Geo-ecosystem.

In preparation for this official expression of interest, a couple of
meetings have already taken place.
a physical BOF @FOSS4G 2014 in Bremen, some mails, a BOF @FOSS4G 2015 in Como and some one physical meetings.
(todo: put meeting minutes on the wiki)

Why should an OSGeo European local chapter be important

more than 99% of all the European businesses are SME's

software industry in Europe is as big as the software industry in the US, but the driving forces are more divided

FLOSS can be used as an opportunity to create a strong industry leadership in Europe

OSGeo.EU can play a coordinating role in this process

Mission and objectives

After discussion amongst the active local chapter members we come to the
following list of mission objectives:

Community-building and networking around specific European themes.

promote the use of open source software in the geospatial industry (PR, training, outreach)

support the European SME's using FOSS4G software, help them to organise and bring into contact with governmental agencies and research institutes.

encourage interoperability in European projects

support open standards and European directives such as INSPIRE

provide support for the use of OSGeo software in education via curriculum development, outreach, and support

to encourage communication between the different European local chapters

to encourage different communities to work together where relevant

Organisation of events

These two mission statements are working together. We believe it is important to meet people face2face. To help them to start open source initiatives, to start using open source solutions, to establish an eco-system that benefits from the cooperation, the sharing and the co-creation open source delivers.

promote the use of freely available geodata - free software is useless without data

Lobbying

We think it is important to speak as one voice, and to get involved with other organisations: administrations, industries, user groups, ... OSGeo.eu will actively speak as an organisation to defend the OSGeo open source spirit in the broader European community (government, academic, industry, other open initiatives).

Networking with other organisations and groups (notably OSG, OSM, JRC, European projects, FIWARE)

Support to OSGeo.org and other European Local Chapters

We believe that OSGeo only can grow if supported from the base. So OSGeo Europe is willing to help OSGeo where necessary, to leverage idea's or act as an advisor if appreciated. We aim at bringing the different local initiatives together, creating a stronger group that is able to speak as one voice. To promote open source in the European administrations and their member states. To help the European geo-ict industry, learning them to promote and reuse open source technology and solutions.

Dirk Frigne - Geosparc, technical GI company, expert for collaboration platform and a sandbox for testbed allowing students to co-create services and apps

Geosparc led on “Authentication, Authorization and Accounting for Data and Services in EU Public Administrations” in the context of the ARE3NA project (EU DG Informatics €1350K ), taking on the role of project lead as well as responsibility for the testbed environment.